|
Seiryu ("blue-dragon")
|
|
FOUR GUARDIAN SPIRITS (SHISHIN)
The four spirit deities guarding the four directions (shishin) were also frequently drawn on the walls of fresco-bearing tumulus graves in China and Korea. In their Japanese pronunciations, the names of these spirits are Seiryu ("blue-dragon") in the east. Byakko ("white tiger") in the west, Suzaku ("red bird") in the south, and Genbu ("black [snake] combatting [a tortoise]") in the north. The four guardian spirits on the walls of the Takamatsuzuka crypt, together with the star charts and the sun and moon with which they form a set, were designed to represent a universe with the buried personage at its center. The Suzaku figure which one would expect to see on the south wall no longer remains, having been destroyed at some point by grave robbers.
| |
